British UN troops in former Yugoslavia are believed to have killed up to 200 local troops who have attacked peace-keepers since the British arrived in October 1992, writes Christopher Bellamy.

The British Army has always interpreted UN rules of engagement robustly, permitting troops to shoot at attackers or at anyone who appeared to be dangerous. Most of the local soldiers killed, however, appear to have been undisciplined, drunk or renegade troops acting in defiance of orders from their own commanders.

There is no official tally of the numbers killed by the British, but the Bosnian government have lost far fewer than the Serbs or Croats. The Ministry of Defence last night said they could not provide a figure, but unofficial estimates from the battalions in Bosnia over the last three years suggest a couple of hundred. The British use the SA-80 rifle which is extremely accurate and has an optical sight with four times magnification.